


Every Nest has its Queen

by Palus_Hiemalis



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Feels, Gen, Multi, One Shot, Other, Trans Valka, Valka is best mum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 16:18:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7808683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palus_Hiemalis/pseuds/Palus_Hiemalis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Valka reflects on her transition, her relationship with Stoic and how she adopted Hiccup alongside faithful Cloudjumper in the former dragons' ice nest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Nest has its Queen

**Author's Note:**

> (Every time I watch HTTYD2 I get all the feelings about Valka, she is seriously one of my favourite fictional characters period. She is curious, courageous, avoidant, dismissive, strong, easily distracted, unsure with her words, a bit shy, tactless at times... She is a wonderful character. Everything about her is a joy to watch, I seriously hope they do a third movie with her.  
> Sometimes, when I write headcanons, I feel like I am slipping into one mindset to another and it's exciting because it changes the story, it becomes a challenge to adapt the idea. But this idea that Valka is trans just fits so easily into the world of HTTYD/2 that the idea comes so easily to me, it didn't feel like a challenge, it felt like I was uncovering more of a beautiful story that could easily be real.  
> Watched the two movies, none of the series as of yet, jsyk.  
> Enjoy.)

Though the ice nest had been shattered in places, it still stood. Inside, the basalt columns climbed high into the upper-most reaches where skylights cut jagged sunbeams where there was a cocoon of frost before. It was still lush and green, dragons still congregated in the shallow pools and ledges decked with ferns, mostly nesting mothers and their hatchlings and a few grounded dragons who had been rescued by her long ago. Too old or too defenceless to leave, they were attended to by their siblings and cousins who had largely abandoned the haven. But Valka still came. On days when the village was holding crowded events, or conducting boisterous meetings in the hall, Valka would slip off on Cloudjumper's back due North. After twenty years alone, she was practically re-learning manners and talking was almost lost to her until she had found Hiccup that dayin the clouds.  
She would take in silence to the catacombs, where the shade loving dragons nested and she would greet them with caresses and snorts. In the dark, she would weave over rocks and wind her way through tight spaces until she broke into the open sanctuary. She needed to immerse herself in the unlit belly of the nest before reaching the nest proper, it was a ritual of rebirth in the quiet and darkness.  
Cloudjumper would be waiting above her on the upper rock formations. Cloistered in his own wings he would peer down at her as she took deep breaths and stretched her limbs. The shrill hiss of the falls and the leathery clap of wings, claws scoring on raw stone and the croak of fledgelings; Valka needed these to recharge herself. And then she would call down Cloudjumper with a little beckon to embrace him, her head pushing deep in the crooks of his lower wing. Cloudjumper preferred to hang from above when resting, and from time to time would insist on bringing Valka into the folds of his wings, holding her against his chest as he wrapped himself up to sleep. Of course, this resulted in disorientating and, at times, suffocating his dear human until she could escape, thus, in return, he would tolerate her calling him to the ground for hugs.  
Valka pushed at his neck and smiled with a small head tilt, this was a request for further tolerance so as to roll on his back and let Valka climb on his chest. He rolled his eyes and his barbels trembled as he breached backwards like a whale, dragging Valka with him on top.  
She murmured a thank you sound, she was an imposition to Cloudjumper at times, but she needed it. Living amongst humans had never been easy for her, but knowing life with dragons had made it harder.  
Valka stayed for an hour or two, lying flat on her stomach, watching the circles of light cast by the sun inch across the floor of the sanctuary. Cloudjumper was fast asleep when she dismounted off his ribs and padded gently out of his wings. She sat by his head and thought about going home. Her eyes traced the edges of the wounds in the roof, the edges dripped slightly, one day the ceiling would melt entirely. She exhaled and gripped her own knees, and imagined living her days out on Berk.  
Cloudjumper rolled over with a start and rustled his facial whiskers, he rumbled and looked about himself.  
"Eh?" She said and trailed her hand at his neck, which twisted to the rocky opening.  
Hiccup emerged from behind hexagonal columns, "Mom?"  
Valka scrambled to her knees, "H-Hiccup, I'm so sorry, I just needed to, to get away, you see... I just..."  
Hiccup approached and placed a hand on her shoulder, "It's ok, mom, it's fine," He smiled, "I was just worried."  
Behind him, Toothless crawled out from the opening and shook himself before settling next to Cloudjumper, who raised a wing for him to hide under.  
Valka sighed and stared at the ground, "You followed me here because you were worried, and yet you've a hundred things on your mind, and you're own mother disappears three times a moon just to get some quiet..."  
Hiccup took her other shoulder and bent to look into her eyes, "Hey now, you're a great mom to me, you give great advice about maintaining leather armour, you always remember little things like locking up the stables, and you've never failed to make me an awful breakfast."  
Valka smiled weakly, "I suppose..."  
"I know so. Look, mom, dad would be so proud to see how you're coping so well." Hiccup sat down and took his mother's hand as she joined him, "You're good at what you do, you're a great asset to the island and no one says otherwise."  
"I suppose they've mostly forgotten..." She laughed, wiping her sleeves across her face to rid the dewiness in her eyes.  
"Oh, what, all the mischief you and dad got up to as kids I suppose? I bet he fell for you on some summer's night when you went cow-tipping together in the moonlight." Hiccup raised an eyebrow.  
Valka chuckled, "No, no, you're father fell for me when I started growing my hair out--" Valka stifled herself and looked away.  
"Growing it out? You didn't have long hair as a young girl?"  
Valka closed her eyes and listened to the dripping of the ice-roof, the truth had never been plain to anyone, let alone herself. It wasn't until she was seventeen when she realised she hated being called 'Hrani', she hated her flat chest and she loved being alone. Alone to herself. On the shore, or deep in the woods, where no one could confuse her any more than she already was.  
She let out a deep breath sharply, "No. No, until I was seventeen winters, I was called Hrani, and I had short hair."  
Hiccup looked at Valka and then out to a group of dragons circling the central pillar of the sanctuary, "Ah."  
Hiccup, who never stopped talking, fell quiet. Valka pulled her knees close to herself and tried to think of what to say; 'I was going to tell you', that was a lie, she wanted everyone to forget, she wanted Hiccup to know her as his mother, the half-dragon half-wild warrior woman. She thought back to the look in his eyes when she had first broken out the clouds to him, she recalled the way the dragon trappers would scream and tear across their ships at her arrival, the shrieks of awe when strangers would catch a glimpse of her scoring the sky on Cloudjumper's back. The way they would point, wondering not who she was, but what.  
Hiccup spoke before she did, "I get it. Why you didn't say anything, why you... why you didn't come back." He paused and looked up, his face relaxed of all expression, "As a kid, I didn't think anyone got me on Berk, I dreamt about waking up a different person or getting eaten by a dragon, I don't know. Anything than having to face who I really was."  
Tears streamed down Valka's cheeks and she leant on Hiccup's shoulder, she took his hand and stroked it, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I wasn't there. I'm sorry." She said, her voice trembling and muffled through the fabric of his shirt. He shuffled closer and put his hand in her hair.  
"It's ok, With everything that has happened... With everything that happened to you, I mean, I imagine... It must have been... I mean I couldn't kill a dragon, and it was all relentless... But you?!"  
Valka sobbed and nodded, her eyes still nestled in her son's shirt. She felt so weak, the guilt coarsed through her but parted in her mind for the pain of the memories. The same that her own son had lived through. Cloudjumper had now come over to investigate, calling out an inquisitive throaty trill to his rider. He lay now and nuzzled her in the back. Toothless followed after, and gently placed his chin on her lap.  
"Hey, look, mom - they don't care. All they want are scratches in the spots they can't reach, and I know I will never reach the mastery of head-scratches that you have in all your years of dragon'ing." Hiccup said, patting Cloudjumper on his snout.  
Valka removed her face and laughed, her face still wet with tears. She ran her fingers over Toothless' head, rubbing the little nubs on either side as he closed his eyes in contentment.  
"What I am trying to say, mom, is that you're strong." He pushed her shoulder, "And you taught me how to be myself, how to honour who I am, who we are. Because you've always been you... to me... and you're my mom, and you're good at that, the best, even if that's different from all the other moms...does that make sense?"  
Valka hummed a laugh and a smile appeared across her cheeks, "Yes. In your own way."  
Together they sat hand in hand, leaning on one another, watching the spray from the falls form an arc of colour in the light. Dragons came and went, taking perches and napping in the afternoon light.  
Valka straightened herself, "He was so adamant, all his life, I tried to push him away. But he insisted, I almost grew my hair out and, er, filled out my chest armour, to deter him. But he would steal kisses regardless of whether I was alone, or with my very few friends, or whether I Hrani, or Valka, the brute."  
"I can't imagine dad was ever that romantic. Persistant seems right, though." Hiccup said, shrugging.  
"Oh yes. And when he went plundering and brought back that golden necklace, my gods, I thought I would die. I said, 'You know I can't wear that! My father'll kill me, he hates the skirts and the hair, he'll choke me with it!', and he said," She puffed out her chest and tipped her head forward, deepening her voice, "'What else will you wear to mah' wedding?' I keeled over at that, and when he picked me up he said, 'You're marryin' the son of a chieftain, you better bloody get used to that sort of thing.' And so I did. Just to spite him. And my father. And everyone."  
Hiccup threw his head back laughing, "How did you do it?!"  
"Well, the people who didn't like it could talk to Stoic, who'd always pushed people into the dirt for even saying my name funny. He was the son of the chieftain, what could they do? And then of course, he when he was chieftain, then all sorts started coming out of the woodworks, boys cuddlin' boys, girls kissin' girls, Berk was a place for the weird and wonderful. Most just didn't care when we took vows, when I was married I chose the name Valka. I'd used a lot of names when we were sweethearts alone together, he and I, but Stoic liked Valka the best. So I went with that. And, we all got stinking drunk at that wedding, I'm surprised anyone remembered I was Hrani at all." Valka sighed happily and leant backwards onto Cloudjumper,  
"Stoic knew that I'd liked him always, when I was scrawny wee' lad begging my ma' to weave ribbons into my braids, ogglin' him as he sharpened his axes. He'd kiss me when I was alone and let me walk into the world as Valka whenever I was ready. He knew when to leave me alone, too, aye, but he knew when to push me, and that were the arrangement for years. Pushing each other. Working together, bickering all the while, kissin' in between."  
Hiccup looked Valka in the eyes, "And what about when you had me?"  
Valka drew a breath and held it, before speaking, "Well. I had a sister, Asny. She was bright and bold, always volunteered for a job before she knew what it was, she always helped with my hair and how to hold myself woman-like. She'd also married into Stoic's lot, his first cousin Gunnar. When she died in childbirth, it hit us all." Valka reached behind her head and felt the pattern of her braid, sighing, "It was never a formal thing, we just got the news and started looking after you most days to give Gunnar a break in grieving, and one day, he was lost on a fishing trip along with his whole crew in a storm. Most said it was a Scauldron, that when Berk's night raid got especially beastly. And in the midst of all that, there you were, such joy and confusion."  
Hiccup looked over to Toothless, he was snoring on his mother's lap, flapping his lips and twitching his ears, deep in a dream where he was carving the clouds.  
He smiled and placed a hand on her lap, "Thank you for telling me."  
There was a long pause of quiet. Hiccup thumbed the scar on his chin, he could hardly conjure memories of his first boat ride when he was six or the time Gobber almost decapitated him by accident in the midst of a dragon raid on his first night as an apprentice when he was ten. Chasing memories of parents before he was old enough to walk was foolish. He tried to imagine his mother, gangly and blushing, in the middle of the woods with his father stout and firm, pushing wildflowers into her hair. Stoic fiercely telling 'Hrani' she was the most beautiful girl on the island, with or without stubble.  
"How you two coped at all, I don't know." Hiccup said.  
Valka spoke almost absent-mindedly as she stroked Toothless' snout, "Oh, me neither... We had more allies than we realised, of course, when it became official at the wedding, we made sure of our friends that day. But what I suppose it came down to was that Stoic made me feel strong, and he always told me he let him feel weak, whether that was weak at the knees or just pathetic, I don't know, but were each other's harbours in the storm. Whatever that storm was, it was always changing." Valka sighed.  
"Mom?"  
Valka turned and looked him in the eyes, her expression soft and warm, "Yes, my dear, anything."  
"Can we ride out to that sea-stack we found the other day in the south sea? I want to watch it at sunset."  
She nodded and stood up. With that Cloudjumper stretched out all four of his wings in anticipation, Toothless groggily flexed his wings and shook his harness, making it rattle. The two of them hoisted themselves on their dragons, Valka taking on her armour for the cold and set off through the skylights. Light painted the ice floes with tinges of orange and the placid sea gleamed with touches of fire. The sun loomed in the sky stretching the shadows as they both ascended high above mountains and icebergs. Hiccup watched his mother spiral on Cloudjumper's back as he roared in delight, she clung to him without a saddle, her face against his neck as he climbed towards the clouds.


End file.
